Sony Europe will start shipping blank Blu-ray discs next month. Rewritable single-layer discs will be available in retail stores in mid March, while write-once discs will start selling in April. Sony also plans on selling blank dual layer discs later in the year.
Sony has been selling cartridge-encased Blu-ray discs in Japan for about a year now, but these new blank discs will not be inside of an enclosure. The discs have a 2X speed rating which equates to a transfer speed of 9 megaBytes per second and can store 25 gigabytes. Sony claims that the discs can safely hold data for about thirty years.
The blank discs will sell for around $30 to $35 each.
